Man on death row becomes first man to be executed in 2017

Convicted murderer Christopher Wilkins, 48, was the first person executed in the United States in 2017. He was injected with the barbiturate drug pentobarbital on Wednesday, January 12 at the Texas State Penitentiary in Huntsville in Walker County.

When asked during his trial if he would rather spend his lifetime in prison or be executed on death row, Wilkins reportedly said, “I haven’t been good to anybody for the last 20 years and I won’t be for the next 20 or the 20 after that.” An appeal made before the United States Supreme Court to stay his execution was denied hours before Wilkins’ execution.

In an interview with the Tribune, Hilary Sheard, Wilkins’ current attorney, said, “The real issue in the case is that he was represented in a critical stage of the process by an attorney who failed to investigate the case and who had agreed to go to work for the District Attorney’s Office, the same office who put Mr. Wilkins on death row.”

Texas had killed 539 people on death row since 1976, the year when the ban on the death penalty was lifted.

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